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INDIANAPOLIS — Authorities say a man alerted a family that included three deaf people about a fire in the attic of their Indianapolis home. Fire Capt. Rita Burris says the fire was reported just after midnight Tuesday and that all four residents safely escaped. Firefighters were able to get the blaze under control in about 15 minutes despite the closest fire ...

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – The distance between life and death narrowed in this flattened city Thursday, with survival depending on the luck of being freed from under rubble, on treating the thousands of wounded, and on speeding the flow of emergency food and water. Two days after a huge earthquake struck the capital, the international Red Cross estimated the number of deaths ...

HOMEWOOD, IL - Firefighters are used to handling tough situations. Going into a building fully engulfed in flames to rescue people is not done by those who can't deal with adversity. That may help explain how firefighters in Homewood and Chicago Ridge approached the situation of being told their usual way of collecting funds for the Muscular Dystrophy Association was being ...

TULSA - A paramedic had to be taken to the hospital herself after being hit by a Jeep while responding to an accident near 51st and Harvard. It happened early Friday morning. It started with an accident in the intersection in which the driver of a car t-boned a minivan. While investigators were attempting to move the car and minivan out ...

HOEHNE -- Family members living on the Roberts Ranch just north of the Bear Fire were breathing a sigh of relief Wednesday as huge plumes of smoke from earlier in the week had shrunk to a light haze drifting over nearby rolling hills and mesas. The Roberts family has spent the week watching firefighters from several states battle the wildfire, which ...

LEWISTOWN — Lewistown Fire Chief John Spotloe said an inaccessible road thwarted firefighters who responded to a barn fire Wednesday. "When we turned onto Otto Road we were met with a big orange sign which said 'Road Closed,' " Spotloe said after fire destroyed a barn at the Jewel Bucy residence, 7601 N. Otto Road. Jewel and Janis Bucy lost their ...

WYATT, Missouri--The dramatic, late-night demolition of a levee sent water pouring onto thousands of acres (hundreds of hectares) of farmland Tuesday, easing the Mississippi River floodwaters threatening the tiny Illinois town of Cairo. But the demolition project did nothing to ease the risk of more trouble downstream, where the mighty river is expected to rise to its highest levels since the ...

UPDATE 5:02 p.m.: ABC 7's Kris Van Cleave reports that the firefighter is conscious and talking. The fire engine involved has been taken to another location, possibly a county yard in Lanham, to be checked out. Original story 4:07 p.m.: A volunteer Prince George's firefighter was critically injured in a fall from a fire engine while responding to a house fire ...

TRENTON — The chairman of a state pension board publicly denounced a former Harrison firefighter as a cheat and a fraud Monday for collecting a $2,500-per-month disability pension from New Jersey while working as a full-time firefighter in North Carolina. As Herman Ellis looked on impassively during a hearing in Trenton, the board voted to refer the case to the state ...

ROODEPOORT, South Africa - If there's a crisis in Roodepoort's Durban Deep, don't expect paramedics to turn up to help. Paramedics are under siege, fearing whether a callout may be an ambush, following the weekend rape of an ambulance crew while tending to a child. At Station 21, where the two paramedics are based, colleagues were still shaken from the incident. ...

LONDONDERRY — Firefighters had a chance to practice their skills yesterday during a controlled burn of a donated house. The home at 32 Pillsbury Road was given to the fire department by a local real estate company to burn down and use as practice for fighting a real structure fire. Capt. Jim Roger was the incident commander and organized the controlled ...

MONTECITO, Calif.—The California Highway Patrol is investigating why a firefighter was handcuffed for refusing to move a fire engine from a freeway in Santa Barbara County. CHP Capt. Jeff Sgobba says the incident on Feb. 15 was rare, regrettable and embarrassing. The confrontation took place in Montecito when CHP officers responded to a freeway crash that caused minor injuries. Sgobba says ...

ST. LOUIS — An off-duty firefighter is being hailed as a hero for rescuing a man whose pickup truck veered into St. Louis' River Des Peres. Authorities say firefighter Steve Nienhaus saw the vehicle enter the river Sunday morning, then quickly swam into the water to save the driver who was slumped over inside the truck. St. Louis Fire Department Capt. ...

THORTON - A horrific three-vehicle crash that sent an SUV hurtling through the air and landing on top of a pickup truck, killed five people and injured four others in suburban Denver Thursday, authorities said. Police in Thornton said those killed were in the Chevrolet S-10 pickup. "All five occupants were pronounced dead at the scene," police spokesman Matt Barnes said. ...

ALLENTOWN, PA - Allentown's aging East Side Fire Station is crumbling and sinking into the ground, posing a health risk to firefighters, according to a recent assessment by the city's top firefighter. "The station is literally falling apart at the seams and sinking," Chief Robert Scheirer told the federal government last June. "We are now at the point where the station ...

PORTLAND - A Portland police officer accidentally used pepper spray instead of a fire extinguisher on a man who lit himself on fire downtown near a fur store Wednesday. Portland Police Bureau Chief Rosie Sizer said the officer was at a stoplight at Southwest 12th Avenue and Yamhill Street when she saw a man in flames. When the officer went to ...

Fairbanks -- Hot, dry and windy weather stoked Alaska's first large wildfire of the season from a quarter-acre blaze north of Fairbanks on Friday afternoon to more than 700 acres of burning hillside by Saturday, fire officials said. The Moose Mountain Fire ignited near the well-populated Goldstream area, but it was burning away from residential areas on Saturday, according to the ...

BALTIMORE - One firefighter was in serious condition after falling from a second-story window at an apartment fire in Northwest Baltimore late Wednesday. The firefighter, who also had burns to both hands, was taken to Maryland Shock Trauma Center, said Chief Kevin Cartwright, a department spokesman. The injuries were not considered life-threatening. He was not identified. Two residents were also injured ...

NEW BRUNSWICK - Two city firefighters were awarded the Valor Award by the Saint Barnabas Burn Foundation for their bravery during a 2009 house fire, according to MyCentralJersey.com Fire Capt. Ramon Schaffer and firefighter Joseph Carman entered the building already engulfed in flames while searching for a missing occupant. They found the man unconscious in a third-floor bedroom and carried him ...

The home of a former Moseleyville fire chief was destroyed Monday morning, in a three-alarm blaze that required manpower from the Daviess County Fire Department and five volunteer fire departments. The fire, at the Ashbyburg Road home of former Moseleyville Volunteer Fire Department Chief John Chandler was reported at 2:06 a.m. Scott Smith, current chief of the Moseleyville Fire Department, said ...